The date of his Liberal government’s next budget hasn’t been announced but it’ll come sometime this spring. It will, he told Toronto’s board of trade over lunch at the Hilton, contain the news that the province’s deficit in the current year, the one just ending, has turned out to be $10.9 billion.

That’s good, or at least good-ish. At last check, Sousa was expecting to spend $11.8 billion more than the treasury brought in, once a $700-million contingency fund (money he wasn’t planning to spend but booked as an expense anyway) was accounted for.

“We are taking a thoughtful and fiscally responsible approach that is working,” Sousa said.

Now, whether Ontario’s budget deficit is $12 billion or $10 billion is not necessarily that important in itself. I mean, $2 billion is more than I’ve got on me right now, but that it’s in the context of the $130-billion budget of Canada’s biggest province matters. What is important is what the government’s regular updates tell us about how closely real life is matching up to the finance minister’s plan.

By that standard, Sousa’s new number is … OK. Which is about the best thing it’s been possible to say about the state of Ontario’s treasury in a while.

Allowing for the fudge factor finance ministers always build into their budgets, in this case a $1-billion contingency fund Sousa didn’t expect to spend, the provincial government is doing $600 million better than it expected to be at this time last year. As of November, he expected to chew through $300 million of that contingency fund, so the situation has actually improved by $900 million in just a few months.

Which sounds quite good, until you go back another year and see that in 2013, Sousa figured the deficit this year would be $10.1 billion. So we’re doing better than his forecast a year ago, but worse than his forecast two years ago.

Still, better this way than the other way around, because the finance minister is out of tricks.

Much of his speech on Tuesday, he could have given during last spring’s election campaign: we’re making education more affordable, we’re funding apprenticeships in the trades, we’ve got a $2.5-billion “Jobs and Prosperity Fund” for business subsidies, perhaps you’ve heard we’re spending $130 billion on infrastructure. The federal government doesn’t give us enough money.

Sousa and Premier Kathleen Wynne might actually have been giving the same speech over and over again since last May, just cut up and remixed. If Wynne ever starts talking about her Portugeuse-immigrant father, we’ll know for sure.

The thing is, Sousa and Wynne have made plans for spending every dollar they have to spend. The Liberal plan was to goose the economy hard with subsidies and public-works projects, clamp down on social spending and public-service salaries and then hope for the best.

Sousa has done much of the goosing. We’re now in the clampdown.

Public servants have taken strike votes as contract negotiations grind on. The health ministry has cut doctors’ pay. In the last couple of weeks the education ministry has boasted about “stable funding” of $22.5 billion for school boards (which means a cut after inflation) and the housing ministry has pretended a $587-million anti-homelessness program is a big deal when it’s actually spending slightly less on the program this year than it did last year. The clampdown is not pretty.

Meanwhile, the price of oil has crashed thanks to a glut and that’s meant the value of the Canadian dollar has slid. Both of these are generally good for Ontario industry. The U.S. economy has, at last, picked up, which means the Americans are buying things from us again.

In his speech, Sousa said private-sector economists are predicting Ontario will lead Canada in economic growth in 2015, though that says a lot more about terrible things happening in provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan than it does about Ontario. Without the plunge in the price of oil, this province’s economy wouldn’t look nearly as good.

Sousa acknowledged that nobody saw that coming. “We welcome the breathing room but it may only be temporary,” he said. So the provincial Liberals will keep on as they have, he promised.

Of course they will. Short of making sharp cuts to spending of the kind Wynne promised specifically she wouldn’t make, there’s not much else they can do.

Yet Oliver will be accessible to a privileged group next week: Not Members of Parliament, but members of the Economic Club of Canada.

On Wednesday, the club will host an event titled “The State of the Canadian Economy with Joe Oliver, Minister of Finance .”

The lunch at the Royal York will cost Economic Club members $100 each. Non-members must pony up $124 to hear the finance minister deliver his thoughts on Canada’s economy.

Of course, only embittered malcontents would dare gripe about a Bay Street audience paying to get an update on our economic state while parliamentarians await Oliver’s budget.

Lest there be any doubt about the blue-chip nature of the event, its sponsors include American Express, Fed Ex, Glaxxo Smith Kline, Sun Life Financial and other corporate venerables.

It is booked for the day before, according to the Globe, Oliver is slated meet with a group of private-sector economists to, presumably, solicit advice on the federal budget, whenever he might deliver it.

Ask for comment on the choice of venue, Oliver’s spokesperson, Melissa Lantsman, wrote only, “Minister Oliver was in the house yesterday. Stay tuned for a budget date.”

]]>http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/the-gargoyle-still-no-budget-but-oliver-to-give-economy-talk-to-bay-street-lunch-crowd/feed/0032715-Commons_20150310-36929601-Commons_20150310-W.jpgglenmcgregorWestern LRT open house draws concerned residents to city hallhttp://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/west-end-lrt-route-still-opposed-by-church-group
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/west-end-lrt-route-still-opposed-by-church-group#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 17:44:54 +0000http://ottawacitizen.com/?p=496067]]>Despite the City of Ottawa’s commitment to mitigate as best it can the impact of the Confederation Line LRT western extension on area residents, the project still faces opposition from a church congregation whose property will be affected by the project.

“It’s going to impact 130 seniors, impact their lives for two years of construction, with all the noise and confusion and traffic that brings,” Christina O’Neil, the executive director of the seniors’ home operated by First Unitarian Congregation of Ottawa, said at a Monday evening information session on the LRT route. “We’re going to fight this. We’ll get engineers, lawyers, lobbyists to fight this.”

The public was invited to City Hall on Monday to look over the latest LRT plans, specifically a compromise reached between the city and the NCC involving the extension between Dominion and Cleary Stations. The extension is to be buried under a realigned Sir John A. MacDonald Parkway.

Early this month, the city and the NCC announced they had reached an agreement in principle to build a 1.2-kilometre portion of the LRT line underground between Cleary and Dominion stations and realign Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway. The section is part of Phase 2 of light rail construction, which would see 19 new stations and an additional 35 kilometres of track by 2023.

The agreement, which would move the proposed route 30 metres closer to the Ottawa River, addresses the NCC’s requirement for unimpeded access to lands along the river corridor and protection of mature parkland growth in the area. For its part, city’s financial concerns are satisfied with the agreement. The city has budgeted $980 million for the western extension, and the proposed alignment will supposedly stay within that budget.

Frances Tippet, centre, said she remains unconvinced about the plan as she looks over drawings of the proposed LRT extension.

Monday evening’s open house at Jean Pigott Place gave the public a chance to see what the agreement is all about in some detail. About 300 people turned out. City officials stressed that much of the plan still needs to be refined. That refinement, they said, would take into consideration public concerns and input before anything its finalized.

The areas of most concern, at least to local residents, are around Dominion and Cleary stations, with the latter the most troublesome because of the impact not only on the seniors’ residence but also the First Unitarian Church and a daycare.

The congregation owns a 2.4-hectare parcel of land adjacent to where the LRT line would begin to enter an underground tunnel and where Cleary station would be located. According to church officials, the tunnel just west of the station would run beneath a parking lot and curve south to meet Richmond Road.

O’Neil said her group will pressure the city to change the LRT corridor to avoid the congregation’s property. The cut-and-cover construction currently proposed will effectively destroy the seniors’ “front yards and rip out their gardens” during at least the two years of construction. As well, there is concern the vibrations from passing trains would create an endless disturbances to residents. At a peak times, a train will pass about every two-and-a-half minutes.

Project manager Chris Swail said the city would do everything it can to mitigate construction noise and any vibrations caused by the trains. He also noted the precise location of the route and the transit stations remains to be settled, leaving some scope for public feedback that can be taken into consideration.

Despite the church’s concerns, most of those who attended seemed to think the agreement between the NCC and the city would well serve the community as a whole.

“It’s a reasonable compromise,” said resident Robert Smith. “The LRT will have an impact on some during construction, but you have to look at the common good. The fact the city is working with the NCC is very positive.”

]]>http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/west-end-lrt-route-still-opposed-by-church-group/feed/0033015-12020301.JPG-lert-W.jpgbitplayer1The public was invited to City Hall on Monday to look over the latest LRT plans, specifically a compromise reached between the city and the NCC involving the extension between Dominion and Cleary Stations. The extension is to be buried under a realigned Sir John A. MacDonald Parkway. Frances Tippet, centre, said she remains unconvinced about the plan as she looks over drawings of the proposed LRT extension. Video: Casino Lac Leamy shows off its high-tech upgradehttp://ottawacitizen.com/business/local-business/video-casino-lac-leamy-shows-off-its-high-tech-upgrade
http://ottawacitizen.com/business/local-business/video-casino-lac-leamy-shows-off-its-high-tech-upgrade#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 17:36:14 +0000http://ottawacitizen.com/?p=496656]]>The Casino Lac Leamy invited the media in recently to see the results of a 27-month renovation project that they are calling modernization work.

The upgrades focus on multimedia experiences and lots of colour.

The gaming area is now surrounded by 1,600 metres of metallic mesh that displays real-time animation on a multimedia ribbon.

There’s a highly visible central hub with 3-D projection mapping.

Even the chandelier is high-tech and multimedia, powered by more than 4,000 software-controlled LEDs.

]]>http://ottawacitizen.com/business/local-business/video-casino-lac-leamy-shows-off-its-high-tech-upgrade/feed/0032715-GMurphy_CasinoLacLeamy_Interior5.jpg-37208293-GMurphy_CasinoLacLeamy_Interior5-W.jpgdgraggFederal spending on child care to almost double: budget watchdoghttp://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/federal-spending-on-child-care-to-almost-double-budget-watchdog
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/federal-spending-on-child-care-to-almost-double-budget-watchdog#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 17:19:36 +0000http://ottawacitizen.com/?p=496369]]>Federal spending on child care will almost double, to approximately $8 billion by the 2017-18 fiscal year from more than $4 billion this fiscal year, according to the parliamentary budget watchdog.

In a report released Tuesday, the PBO estimated that even with an increase in the monthly universal child care benefit to $160 a month from $100, families with children under age 13 will receive proportionally less in federal funds to cover child care costs than other families, some of whom have no child care costs whatsoever.

Before the change, the PBO estimated that two federal child care initiatives – the universal child care benefit and the child care tax deduction – helped families with young children cover on average 66 per cent of their child care costs. That will drop to about 49 per cent this fiscal year, the PBO calculated, once Parliament approves a broadening of the universal child care benefit and raising the limit on the tax deduction.

“When you take into account the enrichment, almost 50 per cent of the overall packages goes to families who have children older than 13, which means that it’s very unlikely that they have any child care expenses,” said assistant budget officer Mostafa Askari. “That’s the reality of the policy.”

The numbers are likely to become political fodder for the government and the Opposition NDP as the two stake out positions on child care, an issue that the New Democrats have made a key plank in their election platform. The NDP wants to not only keep the increased benefits the Tories first proposed, but also create a $5 billion universal child care system that would subsidize one million spaces across the country.

Last week, the government introduced a bill to raise the value of the universal child care benefit to $160 a month from $100 for each child under age six. Once approved, parents with children over six will receive $60 a month. The first batch of increased payments are scheduled to arrive July 20, almost three months to the day before the scheduled federal election in the fall.

Whether that pushes more parents into the workforce is unclear. Studies of the Quebec day care system have concluded that it prodded more women into the labour force, knowing that they had affordable child care at $7 a day.

The PBO said parents in Quebec with children in the provincial day care system may benefit the most from the government’s increase in the child care benefit because it would cover the estimated $1,824 a year it costs for a subsidized space.

Economists have argued that the child care benefit provides a disincentive to work because it is a taxable benefit that is taxed on the lower-income member of a household. The PBO was unable to say whether an increase in the child care benefit would increase workforce participation, saying its research review found a “negligible” behavioural change from parents, a similar impact on federal finances.

The PBO calculated that all families will see an increase in their after-tax income with the changes to federal child care spending.

However, without tying the child care benefit to rising costs in child care, federal spending over time would gradually fall, the PBO said.

Federal spending on child care, by the numbers

$3.3 billion: Federal spending on child care benefits and a child care tax deduction in the 2013-14 fiscal year

$7.7 billion: Federal spending in the 2015-16 fiscal year on the child care benefit and tax deduction

$5.7 billion: Amount Canadian families spent on child care in the 2013-14 fiscal year

125 per cent: Federal child care spending as a percentage of spending by all Canadian families on child care

67 per cent: Amount of child care expenses for families with children under age 13 that federal benefits will cover in the 2015-16 fiscal year

(Source: Parliamentary Budget Officer)

]]>http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/federal-spending-on-child-care-to-almost-double-budget-watchdog/feed/00401_child_care-W.jpgjordanpresGovernment asks for bids for new search-and-rescue planeshttp://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/government-asks-for-bids-for-new-search-and-rescue-planes
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/government-asks-for-bids-for-new-search-and-rescue-planes#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 17:11:31 +0000http://ottawacitizen.com/?p=496443]]>After more than a 10-year delay, the process is under way to purchase of a new fleet of search-and-rescue aircraft for the Royal Canadian Air Force.

Public Works and Government Services Canada issued the request for proposals to industry on Tuesday. Companies will have six months to respond with their bids on the $3-billion program, according to Public Works.

The actual purchase, however, is expected to run into some further delays because of this year’s federal election, say aerospace industry representatives. That’s because major decisions are put on hold at that time.

Aerospace industry insiders say they expect a contract to be awarded sometime in 2016.

The new planes are to replace the RCAF’s Buffalo aircraft. The Buffalos, first purchased in 1967, are key to search and rescue on the west coast and in parts of the Rockies. Those aircraft are already facing mechanical and technical problems and several years ago the air force had difficulty obtaining spare propellers. The new planes would also replace older Hercules aircraft used in search and rescue.

The project to buy new search-and-rescue planes has been floundering since 2004, when it was announced as a priority by the then Liberal government. The project was re-announced by the Conservatives in 2006 and the contract was supposed to be awarded in 2009.

After some firms questioned how the procurement process was structured, a new schedule was released in which the final call for bids was to be issued to industry in late 2013. That release of documents was further delayed to December 2014 but the documents weren’t issued.

The quest to buy the new aircraft was delayed in part because of a Conservative government freeze on hiring new staff, according to a report prepared in 2012 for Julian Fantino, the associate defence minister.

The documents, obtained by the Citizen under the Access to Information law, noted that the shortage of personnel was a problem in the aircraft procurement management office.

The Department of National Defence, like other federal organizations, has been dealing with downsizing and limits on hiring new staff over the last several years. DND officials say they have taken care of the staff shortages in the aircraft procurement office.

Aerospace firms have been ready to bid for years. Alenia Aermacchi is offering the C-27J Spartan, Airbus Military has its C295 and Lockheed Martin is promoting the C-130J. The firms have teamed with Canadian companies to provide systems and other equipment or services for their proposed bids.

Viking Air of British Columbia and Bombardier of Quebec have decided against offering aircraft for the competition.

Former DND procurement chief Alan Williams said the purchase of the planes ran into problems shortly after the project was started. He noted that the air force, against his advice, originally designed the search-and-rescue requirements in 2004 so one particular plane, the C-27J, would win.

According to Williams the plan backfired when representatives from other aerospace firms got wind of the scheme and complained to the government about the unfairness of the process.

The military has repeatedly denied it rigged the competition to favour any particular plane.

]]>http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/government-asks-for-bids-for-new-search-and-rescue-planes/feed/0CX2004-0107-02.jpgdavidpugliese2Woman charged in Miami hit-and-run: Ottawa man still criticalhttp://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/woman-charged-in-miami-hit-and-run-ottawa-man-still-critical
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/woman-charged-in-miami-hit-and-run-ottawa-man-still-critical#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 16:56:34 +0000http://ottawacitizen.com/?p=496291]]>A Miami woman has turned herself over to police in relation to a tragic hit-and-run incident that has left a University of Ottawa researcher in critical condition.

Olivia Bennett, 26, of Florida is now facing two felony charges in relation to the incident. Bennett does not have a valid Florida driver’s licence, according to police. She has also been unable to provide proof that she has a driver’s licence from any other state.

According to Miami-Dade police, Ottawa’s Alexander Sanghwan was walking on the edge of the road at NE Fifth Avenue and NE 180th Street around 5:30 a.m. Sunday when he was struck by a navy blue BMW 335i.

The driver fled without helping Sanghwan, who was taken to the Jackson Memorial Hospital Trauma Center. Police said Sanghwan’s family came from Ottawa to be by his side.

Miami-Dade police on Monday charged Olivia Bennett, 26, with two felony counts related to reckless driving while leaving the scene of a crash with bodily injury.

Reports in Miami said Sanghwan was in Miami-Dade for the Ultra Music Festival. Police said he and his friends had just left a club and were looking for a cab when Sanghwan was struck.

According to police, several witnesses were present during the incident. Many had to jump out of the way of the out of control vehicle in order to avoid being hit themselves.

The vehicle was extensively damaged in the crash. Police recovered fragments from the scene that they matched to a blue BMW found in a strip club parking lot on 183rd Street in Miami on Sunday night.

The woman’s lawyer contacted police Monday to communicate that his client would be turning herself in.

During March break, I was a chaperone on Nepean High School’s European tour. We were on a bus with 46 students, driving to the most notorious death camp of the Second World War. I had always pictured Auschwitz in the midst of an empty expanse, the sky overcast, nature reflecting our guide’s warning: “We’re about to enter one of the saddest places on Earth.”

Yet, the death camp is just an hour west of Kraków, situated in the Polish village of Oświęcim – more commonly recognized by its German pronunciation, Auschwitz.

As we neared our destination, we passed a KFC, a playground, moms pushing strollers, people walking dogs. Village life was obscenely normal, the sky a disrespectful blue.

I had the fleeting thought the visit might not be as bad as I had dreaded.

Upon arrival, we saw small cafes, book stores, and memorial shops. “Please don’t call them souvenir shops,” urged our guide. We went through airport-like security and received our ‘whisper machine’ headsets. Bursts of chatter and laughter erupted from a group ahead of us. Everything was too, well, normal.

After the security hall, we were lead outside. Unintentionally, I let the door slam shut. The noise reverberated over the quiet courtyard. In front of me was the familiar black iron gate, the one I had seen in textbooks and documentaries, the one with the cynical inscription, Arbeit Macht Frei: “Work makes you free.” In an act of defiance, the B in Arbeit had been installed upside down.I touched the barbed wire as we walked through the gate. This no longer felt normal.

“Auschwitz was a death factory,” said our guide. The Nazis murdered upwards of 10,000 people a day. At least 1,100,000 Jews were murdered in total in this camp alone. I looked at my students, my nervousness reflected in their solemn faces. But still, the sky was stubbornly blue and the birds insisted on singing.

Building after building lined the orderly streets, verification of the Nazis’ obsessive planning. In Block no. 4, we were faced with an enormous display of human hair. I walked its entire length, trying to see every single braid, every single lock, every single tiny little curl. Seventy years ago, camp liberators found approximately 7,000 kilograms of hair. It was in this room that many of my students dissolved into gut-wrenching sobs. I handed out tissues, comforting them until the enormity of this death factory smashed my composure. I left, gagging on tears.

We witnessed other displays of “Evidence of Crimes”: the prayer shawls, the piles upon piles of suitcases, the kilograms of eyeglasses, the baby clothes.

Every time we stepped outside to move from one building to another, I now welcomed the blue sky, its clearness a brief reprieve.

One student whispered that the birds could be the now-freed souls of murdered children, and Taela Liebenberg, grade 12, afterwards wrote, “I have tripped over stones on the same roads dead children roamed. I have divorced those feelings for now; they are too much, too strong.”

A few days prior, our European tour had begun in East Berlin, and some of us had been admiring a graffitied, Cold War factory. A local photographer approached; conversation ensued. When he learned we were planning to visit Auschwitz, he was surprised: “Why Auschwitz?”

We were surprised by his surprise. I responded that it was an important historical monument. He countered that there were countless important historical monuments worldwide, repeating, “Why Auschwitz?”

Why? Because even though life has continued in Oświęcim – as it should – with its restaurants and parks, with its blue skies and singing birds, 46 Ottawa students now bear testament to one of the worst chapters in our human story. May this firsthand knowledge continue to inspire young people to fight for the victims in our own time.

Gwen Smid is a teacher at Nepean High School.

]]>http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/gwen-smid-blue-sky-over-auschwitz/feed/0033115-461706582-0401_oped_smid-W.jpgkateheartfieldRiverpark Green – A unique opportunity in sustainable environmental livinghttp://ottawacitizen.com/life/homes/riverpark-green-a-unique-opportunity-in-sustainable-environmental-living-in-the-heart-of-riverside-park-south-2
http://ottawacitizen.com/life/homes/riverpark-green-a-unique-opportunity-in-sustainable-environmental-living-in-the-heart-of-riverside-park-south-2#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 16:51:08 +0000http://ottawacitizen.com/?p=495777]]>Industry professionals and former customers alike know that something special is in the wind whenever Ottawa architect Christopher Simmonds and builder Roy Nandram of RND Construction Ltd. get together on a new home construction project.

For the past 25 years these two men and their teams have built sterling reputations on the back of their commitment to using environmentally responsible design and construction practices on the homes they renovate and build. Their holistic approach focuses on the way modern families can live in a healthy environment that ensures a generous supply of daylight and fresh air inside a home that is in balance with its surroundings.

“It’s about how the spaces feel, and what sort of spaces feel comfortable to people,” says Simmonds, who incorporates the harmonizing principles of feng shui in his work. “I’m very interested in the relationship of buildings to their natural environment.”

In addition to their long list of individual industry awards, Simmonds and Nandram together with their companies have won the People’s Choice Award for housing design at the annual Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association Housing Design Awards for the last three years running. It is an impressive achievement.

Their latest collaboration is an upscale enclave that promises everything one might expect from talented construction professionals performing at the top of their game – healthy homes in a healthy environment. The planned Riverpark Green infill development of four environmentally sustainable single-family homes in an established neighbourhood is close to schools and just minutes away from the Rideau River and Mooney’s Bay Park.

Construction at Riverpark Green is scheduled to begin later this spring for fall occupancy, and over the next few months lucky homebuyers will learn what it means to work with Ottawa’s premier environmental home construction visionaries. RND Construction president Nandram explains: “What we are doing which is different from every other builder is that we are saying, let’s design your new green home together.”

Homebuyers will actually sit down with the architects and builders to customize the interior design of their new Riverpark Green homes on Fielding Drive. Whether it is a modern loft look with concrete floors that appeals, or a more traditional ambience with oak plank flooring, pretty much anything is possible.

“We have established a general framework,” says architect Simmonds, “but after that it is wide open for the customer. We can customize these homes considerably. Whatever the customer is keen on, we can provide. There’s always a way of building what people want in a green, energy-efficient way.”

The four-bedroom homes start with an Energy Star certification which Nandram says is 20 to 25 per cent more energy efficient than the building code requirement. Customers have the option to upgrade all the way up to LEED Gold standard for only a modest increase in price. The return on green investment can be substantial in terms of energy cost savings which can boost a home’s eventual resale value.

Everything from the use of high-efficiency technologies to the low-impact placement of the driveways has been considered in reducing the environmental footprint of these 2,500 to 2,900-sq. ft. contemporary homes on their 60×100-ft. treed lots.

“Riverpark Green was planned from Day 1 to be environmentally friendly,” says Nandram. “The site has a lot of mature trees, so we planned the layout of the houses and driveways to avoid cutting trees down. It will look like we’ve been there forever.”

Interested homebuyers will likely want to move quickly to take advantage of this extraordinary offer to customize a new green home under the guidance of such an accomplished team of professionals.

“If you go to other green communities and buy a house,” says Nandram, “you take what they give you. Here you have the opportunity to be part of the design process.”

To learn more about the green living opportunities at Riverpark Green, call 613-523-8598 or email info@rndconstruction.ca. Visit RND Construction and Christopher Simmonds Architect online at www.rndconstruction.ca and www.csarchitect.com.

This story was produced by the Ottawa Citizen’s advertising department on behalf of RND Construction for commercial purposes. Postmedia’s editorial departments had no involvement in the creation of this content.

]]>http://ottawacitizen.com/life/homes/riverpark-green-a-unique-opportunity-in-sustainable-environmental-living-in-the-heart-of-riverside-park-south-2/feed/0group of houseskarenxsteinAndrew Reeves: 'I like order in disorder so it doesn’t get too whimsical'http://ottawacitizen.com/life/style/mr-modern-andrew-reeves-contemporary-themed-home
http://ottawacitizen.com/life/style/mr-modern-andrew-reeves-contemporary-themed-home#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 16:30:09 +0000http://ottawacitizen.com/?p=454193]]>It takes time to figure out why, when you enter architect Andrew Reeves’ contemporary-themed home in Lindenlea, you feel a little less burdened by your daily cares, a bit more open to possibility.

Then you realize that it’s the ample daylight — illuminating the wide plank oak floors, slipping through the stairwell’s glass panels, and heightening the white of the walls — that’s making everything including you feel and look more buoyant.

“Since Day 1 I’ve been ultra-sensitive to bringing character and warmth to homes through light,” says the owner of Ottawa’s LineBox Studio. He likes how light casts shadows, how its quality changes over the course of a day, how his two young daughters lie in a band of sun on the dining room floor and observe the neighbourhood through a low-placed window.

Andrew Reeves put his design philosophy into practice in his own home, a 2,100-square-foot townhome he shares with his wife and two daughters not far from bustling Beechwood Avenue.

Light and its soulmate airiness define the open-concept, 2,100-square-foot town that Reeves calls home. Not far from bustling Beechwood Avenue, it’s one of three LineBox-designed row units, each different both inside and out from the other two yet all sharing common elements like clever storage solutions and high energy efficiency.

With their exteriors of brick, stucco, cedar and metal, the Springfield Towns fit well with the neighbourhood’s eclectic architecture.

The homes were developed by ModBox, a high-end urban development company consisting of LineBox and contract/project managers The Lake Partnership. The project was a finalist in the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association’s Housing Design Awards in 2014. The units, valued at about $995,000 each, have all been sold or rented.

A painting of a yellow canoe by artist Christopher Griffin takes centre stage in the dining area.

Reeves says that with infill projects like this — and infills are a LineBox specialty — natural light can be an issue because of surrounding buildings. So windows are critical for both the brightness they bring and the solar heat they collect on frosty winter days.

In the New Edinburgh project, those windows, especially when viewed from outside, punctuate the walls in seemingly random fashion, most running horizontally and a few vertically. Look more closely, though, and you’ll see subtle patterns of placement and size.

“I like order in disorder so it doesn’t get too whimsical,” says the 39-year-old architect who could be speaking about himself and how he counterbalances his easy smile with an essential seriousness.

Like the windows in most of his projects, those in his own home require no window treatments for privacy. Homeowners can see out, but thanks to the shape and location of the windows others can’t see in.

The sleek kitchen features an island with polished concrete countertops.

That absence of window treatments reduces visual clutter (clutter being a bugaboo in Reeves’ world) and helps highlight the homes’ interior lines.

Reeves’ love of light extends to the artificial variety. For example, over the kitchen island hangs a cylindrical pendant fixture from Toronto’s Castor Design. Made of burned-out fluorescent light tubes, it’s lit from within, and the diffused illumination and round shape balance the fixture’s basically industrial look.

If the home’s brightness makes for a feeling of buoyancy, so does its verticality. The entrance is at street level, but you travel up to the second-floor kitchen, living room and dining area.

The floor above includes the two bedrooms. “We thought about having three,” says the Windsor-born architect, “but with just two we notice how much more connected the kids are.”

The Stûv wood-burning stove can be swivelled to maximize views of the fire.

A final hike up the stairwell takes you to a kitchenette that serves the rooftop terrace with its view of the neighbourhood. Reeves, his wife, Melissa Reeves, and their daughters Ashlyn, 5, and Chloe, 2, moved into their home last summer, and have already experimented with a rooftop vegetable garden. They plan to add small trees. “I don’t get backyards — they’re just extra work, and we have two parks just down the street,” he says. Reeves’ customary rapid speech suggests a man in a hurry who’s figured out what’s important to him and what’s not.

The comfortable sunken living room, complete with wall mounted flat screen television, is separated from the dining area by the Stûv wood-burning stove.

In the sleek kitchen, visitors walk across large porcelain tiles on the radiant-heated floor to an island with polished concrete counter-tops. Reeves points to a banquette that doubles as storage space. It’s his favourite spot to sit, he says. “The kitchen really is the heart of the home.”

His other favourite elements include the Stûv wood-burning stove between the sunken living room and the dining room. The stove can be swivelled so the fire is visible from either the living or dining areas.

Also high on his love-list: a huge painting of a canoe by Ottawa artist Christopher Griffin (“My wife had a yellow canoe at her cottage when she was growing up, and I like the light in it”) and a Danish-styled credenza he’s owned for years (“It’s just a beautiful object. It’s hard to find things to have for life and then pass on to your kids”).

Glass is a major feature in the home, including in a walk-in shower.

Wood and glass are prominent features in this airy home. Windows are critical for both the brightness they bring and the solar heat they collect on frosty winter days.

Between its form and content, Reeves’ home embodies what he explains as his approach to design: “A lot of modern architects design houses, and then people live in them. We try to do it differently, to design homes based on our clients’ characters.”

That approach has led to some tasty contracts including the nearby home of Tobias Lütke, president of Ottawa’s runaway success story, the online shopping company Shopify. LineBox has also designed Shopify’s spiffy new Elgin Street headquarters.

It was to do such smaller scale, one-at-a-time projects that Reeves, who holds a master’s of architecture degree from Carleton University, struck out on his own in 2006 after working at the much bigger Brisbin Brook Beynon Architects, designers of such projects as Ottawa’s Convention Centre. “It was about finding my own way, my own style,” he says.

Andrew Reeves’ mantra is to design homes based on his clients’ characters, which has led to many rewarding projects.

LineBox is a winner of multiple design awards and has grown to be a 10-person firm.

LineBox, winner of multiple design awards, has grown to be a 10-person firm including a small Toronto office. Its work includes commercial projects as well as residential construction and renovations.

Reeves will combine that diverse expertise in the transformation of the former Saint-Charles Church in Vanier into a mix of condos and commercial space. It’s another ModBox project, with the design work already begun.

As we wind up our visit, Reeves comments on the copy of Wilco’s 2002 record Yankee Hotel Foxtrot stored with other vinyl albums in a kitchen cubby hole. “I have a soft spot for indie folk,” he says. “Life is crazy, and you run around all the time. It’s nice to take it easy once in a while, just sit back and relax.”

]]>http://ottawacitizen.com/life/style/mr-modern-andrew-reeves-contemporary-themed-home/feed/0Springfield-ext-038daviddevineAndrew Reeves’ light-filled townhome, which he shares with his wife and two daughters, is not far from bustling Beechwood Avenue.A painting of a yellow canoe by artist Christopher Griffin takes centre stage in the dining area.The sleek kitchen features an island with polished concrete countertops.The Stuv wood-burning stove can be swivelled to maximize views of the fire. The comfortable sunken living room is separated from the dining area by the Stûv wood-burning stove, which can be swivelled for better viewing.Glass is a major feature in the home, including in a walk-in shower.Wood and glass are prominent features in this airy home.Andrew Reeves’ light-filled townhome, which he shares with his wife and two daughters, is not far from bustling Beechwood Avenue.LineBox is a winner of multiple design awards and has grown to be a 10-person firm.